Sid POV

  Sid woke up with the taste of dried leaves mixed with soil. He needed a moment to collect himself after that strange meeting; there were quite a few details that didn’t add up. He could figure out the mystery later—he should prioritize staying alive.

  Sid absorbed the Keen Eyes skill. With his new skill, Sid could see anywhere from fifteen to twenty feet into the dense fog. He could hear noises in the distance—suggesting the fight was going on.

  He had to choose. Stay and fight, or flee alone. His current skill set gave him confidence he could escape the trapper.

  The conversation he had just had and his promise resurfaced in his mind. Running away is easy. If I just do simple things, I’ll never be able to grow. Fighting and winning here is difficult but not impossible, thought Sid. After deciding, he checked his status again.

  Name: Siddharth Krishnan

  Race: Human (Tier 0)

  Traits [1/1]:

  ????: Contract [0/1]

  Strength: 3

  Agility: 3

  Endurance: 3

  Vitality: 2

  Perception: 9

  Intelligence: 9

  Willpower: 7

  Charisma: 2

  Affinities: None

  Skills [3/3]:

  Veil of the Mind’s Eye (Common)—Level 1

  Mist Blend (Common)—Level 1

  Keen Eyes (Common)—Level 1

  He’d somehow unlocked his trait’s primary ability during that ordeal; however, it won’t help him now. Based on the name and the zero out of one suffix, it involves agreements or contracts with other beings.

  On the skill front, he lacked the means to attack from range; he had to regroup with Rohan and then take out the shaman.

  “Sid, are you there?” he heard Rohan’s voice from his left. He’s nearby; I need to reach him before the shaman finds me awake, thought Sid.

  Echo Sense worked much like passive sonar. The shaman does not emit any ultrasonic signals but listens to the ambient vibrations from his surroundings to create a picture in his head.

  As per the army field guide, the recommended strategy when encountering an Echo Sense user was to mask your presence by sticking close to a bigger object. Other methods were discussed, but they only worked on enemies with a low level and proficiency in Echo Sense—such as overwhelming with multiple echoes or masking your echoes with ambient noise.

  Sid took out his phone and turned it on. Luckily, it switched on, but with a single percent of battery remaining. He opened the white noise app and played ambient forest noises at the highest volume.

  Sid stood up, activated Mist Blend and walked in the direction from which he had heard Rohan. He had his phone in his left hand and a dagger in his right. The spare dagger from the second goblin was tucked inside his pocket.

  Sid knew little about Mist Blend, as it was a Class D Common Skill, but he hoped it would help with masking his echo, plus he wanted to find out its limits before combat. He came across the body of the first goblin he had killed, finding his wooden spear next to it. He picked up the spear, moving the phone to his pocket as well.

  The trapper had likely not set a lot of traps within the mist—the goblin scouts were running around here and would’ve also fallen prey to these traps. However, Sid still waved the spear in front of him, about shin height from the ground, to check for snares and tripwires.

  “Sid, …,” he heard Rohan again, but everything after his name came out muted. He hoped it was Aditi who had done it. Although it helped Sid, broadcasting their location was not a wise thing to do.

  Sid found out that he could keep Mist Blend active for ten seconds; after that, it would deactivate itself and go on cooldown. It was a strange experience to observe his own body while the skill was in effect—it looked like he was made of mist. However, he could still see the outline of his body, most likely because of his other new skill, Keen Eyes. Unlike Mist Blend and Veil of the Mind’s Eye, Keen Eyes was a passive skill that did not require conscious activation.

  Sid hoped the echoes emitted by his body changed whenever the Mist Blend was active. Once he figured out the maximum duration, he kept the skill activated for random amounts of time—three seconds, then two seconds, then five seconds and back on cooldown—to mess with the auditory feedback received by the shaman.

  While scanning to his right, Sid saw a flicker. He pulled his shoulders back and tilted his head. Something flashed past his ears. If he hadn’t dodged, that would’ve gone through his eye, ending his second life early. The system seemed to agree with his assessment by letting him know that both Mist Blend and Keen Eyes had leveled up. He looked straight ahead to see the outline of a tree and what looked like people next to it.

  Sid breathed a sigh of relief at his fortune, which was louder than he thought it would be. He registered the lack of ambient noise a second later, checking his phone to find it dead and become as useful as a brick. His heart fell as he realized his cover had been blown.

  Sid threw his phone to the left, his spear to the right and sprinted forward as soon as they hit the floor—in order to create as much background noise as possible and cover maximum ground in that duration. He reached Aditi and Rohan, gasping for breath.

  “Sid! Thank God you’re alive.” Rohan grinned and clapped his shoulder.

  Sid caught his breath. “Did they target this tree yet?”

  Aditi glanced at the belt cinched around his thigh. “What happened to your leg?”

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  “Goblins,” said Sid, turning back to Rohan, tilting his head forward, prompting an answer to his query.

  Sid saw a flicker in the corner of his vision and bent low, pulling down Rohan. The stone struck the trunk above them; it would’ve missed them even without the dodge.

  Aditi moved to switch trees, but Sid caught her hand and signaled her to wait.

  Sid kept his voice low. “I have a plan. Any white-noise or sleep-sounds apps on your phones?”

  “Left it back at the office.” Rohan’s gaze fell.

  “Don’t have that app.” Aditi pulled out her phone, anyway.

  Looks like we’ll have to go with Plan B, thought Sid.

  “Alright,” said Sid, “I know the general direction they are throwing from. If we can hit the goblins with a Mana Web, we can run up and finish them,” alternating his gaze between Aditi and Rohan.

  “We tried that before. I could not hit them—can’t even see them from here,” said Rohan, knitting his brows.

  “I have a skill that lets me see further than normal. I can help with aiming. Aditi, can you be the decoy?”

  “I don’t have any skills. Can’t you be the decoy? You have Sixth Sense and can evade danger,” said Aditi, jaws clenching, leaning on her spear.

  “I need to help Rohan with his aiming. Relax, just cover your head with the bag; the stones are non-lethal everywhere else,” said Sid, lifting his chin. “Keep this for safety,” he added, passing the spare dagger.

  Aditi looked like she was about to cry. She composed herself, sniffling a little. “Okay, I’ll do it,” she said, eyes showing resolve.

  Sid pointed left. “Stones are coming from there. Aditi, run to the tree behind you—be as loud as you can.”

  Aditi nodded in return.

  Sid swallowed, then turned to Rohan, saying, “We will run in that direction. Keep your Mana Web ready. I’ll stop when I see them and help you aim. “

  “Okay,” said Rohan.

  Sid pointed at Aditi. “Aditi, on the count of three, run. Rohan, go when I go. One, two, three!”

  Aditi sprinted to the next tree, using her bag to protect her head. Sid and Rohan ran forward at a slower pace.

  Sid stopped when he saw the outlines of two tiny figures in the fog. Rohan had his skill primed and ready for launch, extending his hand in front of him. Sid corrected Rohan’s aim and said, “Now.”

  Sid ran forward as soon as Rohan launched Mana Web. Even if the skill didn’t hit them both, he was hoping they were at the very least distracted by the attack.

  Rohan followed Sid, but overtook him soon due to not being injured in the leg.

  Sid spotted them first: two goblins, one with tribal markings, a headdress, and a feathered staff; the other with a slingshot and an eyepatch over its left eye—both caught in web-like white goo. Thick white fog was spewing out of the staff, even when the shaman was stuck.

  Upon spotting Sid and Rohan, the eyepatch-wearing goblin tried to draw his slingshot without success. The shaman, however, stopped spewing fog from his staff.

  Then it hit them, terror like no other—the kind you face when stared at by a predator up close, where you know for a fact that you have seconds before your demise.

  “Intimidate,” Sid blurted out loud, dropping his jaw.

  Rohan hit the floor and rolled up like a millipede. Sid tried to move, but his body refused. He felt like he was moving through a flooded paddy field where his legs got stuck in the mud.

  Sid knew the shaman had Minor Heal and Mana Shield from his memories. Now it has used Mist Veil, Echo Sense and Intimidate. He was fighting a Tier 1 monster with five Uncommon skills while not having a single Uncommon skill himself. He wailed in his mind at the unfairness of the situation—how could they fight such a being just three days after being pulled into the dungeon.

  Intimidation was one of the top skills from the dungeon, researched by all organizations. It allowed for easy subduing of hostile situations and was one of the few skills cleared for use against civilians.

  The effectiveness of the skill scales with the intelligence stat of the user. If the targets have a willpower stat less than one-fourth of the user, they will hit the floor unable to do anything. The effectiveness and duration of the skill reduces with an increase in the Willpower stat of the target. Rohan had a willpower of three, while Sid’s was seven, so the threshold for resistance should be somewhere in between.

  Sid moved towards the goblins at a snail-like pace; the goblins also could not move themselves. It became a race against time. Sid had to reach them before the Mana Web unravelled. Based on his current speed, Sid concluded he would be unable to reach the goblins before the time was up. He had to be prepared for a counterattack from them.

  If he was going to go down, he would go down fighting, thought Sid. He turned his attention to the only two things left in his arsenal—Mist Blend and Veil of the Mind’s Eye. Mist Blend boosts willpower—if he could level it up one more time, he might resist the intimidation better.

  Sid did something that people are not advised to do at Tier 0—overclocked his soul by activating both Mist Blend and Veil of the Mind’s Eye at the same time. He switched the target of Veil of the Mind’s Eye every other step, hoping to give the impression that he was executing a slow Zagged Sprint.

  With Mist Blend and Veil of the Mind’s Eye working in tandem, one confusing the vision while the other blocking out his presence from vision, the goblins could not determine Sid’s exact position when they counterattacked.

  Two things happened at once. The overclocking of two active skills made Sid lightheaded, and he started bleeding from his nose—he would suffer permanent damage if he didn’t stop soon. At the same time both his skills leveled up bringing his Willpower stat to eight, the effect was almost immediate. Sid’s speed went from running on a flooded paddy field to running on a beach.

  Sid reached the goblins before the Mana Web unraveled and stabbed at the shaman. However, a white translucent dome stopped his strike inches from the shaman’s face. The shaman had used the Mana Shield to block him. Small motes of light started forming around the shaman’s bindings as the Mana Web unraveled.

  Sid made a split-second choice to go after the slinger before he got away, stabbing it through the neck.

  The shaman took that opportunity to pummel Sid in his groin with his staff, running away from him after.

  Sid brought his knees together, crying out in pain, jumping up and down, watching the shaman run away, only for it to trip and fall from a spear between its legs.

  Rohan was upon the shaman in an instant, bringing down his spear like a club. But the shaman blocked it, using his feathered staff. Rohan tried to push his spear down; however, the shaman proved to be his equal in strength and pushed the spear away, trying to stand up.

  Rohan swept the shaman’s legs, bringing him down to the ground again.

  A second spear entered the fray, stabbing through the shaman’s stomach into its torso. Aditi held the other end of the spear like a lancer on a horse, tears flowing down her face.

  Now that the spell was interrupted, the fog started to thin. Three people stood at the center of the carnage. Spread between them were two dead goblins and their skill crystals.